Thunder
by HecateA
Summary: Lightning bolts and heartbeats don't have much in common, but they're both absolutely terrifying. Oneshot. T for language. Written because I should be working on a term paper instead.


**I don't know if I'm the only one who has this problem, but I HATE this IOS update from a long time ago that changed the music app, so now you see all of your music when you have Wi-Fi but when you're out and about only a few songs are actually on your phone. This is probably also because my phone is starting to get a bit loopy and it deletes certain songs at will (such as *eye twitch* half of the Hamilton soundtrack). Anyways, the first time this has come in handy was today, after twelve hours at the library, when this very old song popped up on shuffle. This entire piece was conceived and produced on the bus ride home. Enjoy!**

 **Disclaimer: You know I own nothing, not even song lyrics.**

 **PSA: "Hurricane Bianca" has just been added to Canadian Netflix, for all the RPDR fans out there.**

* * *

 **Thunder**

 _Your voice was the soundtrack of my summer_ _  
Do you know you're unlike any other?  
You'll always be my thunder, and I said  
Your eyes are the brightest of all the colors  
I don't wanna ever love another  
You'll always be my thunder  
So bring on the rain  
And bring on the thunder_

-Thunder, Boys Like Girls

* * *

Percy sat in the closet, hands clamped over his ears until Mom opened the door gently. She was wearing pajama pants and a grey sweater. She crouched next to him. The raindrops hitting the windows sounded even bigger now.

"Sweetheart, what's wrong?" She asked.

"It's so loud," he said. Thunder boomed across the sky and Percy felt as if the very floorboards under his feet were shaking. He whimpered, but this time instead of bundling up against the wall he threw himself against Mom, who gathered him in his arms and held him against her chest.

"Shhh," she said. "Shhh. That's the thunder."

"I don't like it," he said. "It's too big."

Thunder boomed again.

"Just because it's big doesn't mean it can hurt you, sweetheart," Sally said. "Do you want me to teach you a trick?"

"Will it make the storm stop?" Percy asked.

"It will make it smaller," Sally said. "Isn't that better than nothing?"

Percy nodded. It was. That didn't mean it was _good,_ but it was better.

"Mommy's going to look out the window," Sally explained. "And when I see a flash of lightning, we'll start counting Mississippis. Are you ready?"

Percy nodded.

"Will you help me count in case I do it wrong?" Percy asked shyly.

"Of course," Sally said. "Will you come to the window with me to watch?"

Percy shook his head, and he crawled back into the closet. Sally crossed the room and peaked out the window, the glass cool against her fingers. It really was coming down hard. A bolt of lightning jumped out against the dark and cloudy sky. Sally couldn't help but remembering one day, back in Montauk five years ago, when it had been particularly stormy. They had been stuck inside, and were playing Crazy Eights and drinking beer and eating sour gummy worms. Sally had commented on how unexpected the wild storm raging outside was, and Poseidon had shrugged it off and casually mentioned how Hades had sunk his claws into every possible opportunity to bring up Zeus' daughter at the Summer Solstice meeting and how the two had been at it ever since. Zeus was brewing storms, Persephone complained about how it interfered with her months of freedom, Hades was releasing more monsters than usual into the world, other deities were complaining about the panic this was causing in the demigod world, Hades said to take it up with Zeus, Zeus said that Hades was being coy and unreasonable, Hades said that breaking a promise in less than fifty years was unreasonable, Zeus told him to mind his business, Hades told him he had _made it_ his business... This was referred to as "the usual".

It hadn't seemed that casual of an occurrence to Sally, but Poseidon had just shrugged it off and put down the six of clubs. She'd been a bit too stunned to slap down her six on top.

"And you're not involved in this fight?" Sally had asked.

"Nope," Poseidon said. "Not until they drag me in, anyways. Notice that the sea would be perfectly still if Zeus weren't huffing and puffing and passing wind like that. Such a flair for the dramatic, you can tell he's the baby of the family."

But ever since, she'd suspected that Percy's incredible fear of thunder and lightning storms was maybe rooted in some sort of deep, buried instinct regarding Zeus' anger. Sometimes she worried about what kind of storm the sea and the sky would unleash when Percy was eventually brought up at these meetings. She tried to imagine what that storm would have looked like had the waves been lashing out to strike the sky themselves, had the seafloor and the earth been trembling the entire time.

"Okay Percy, there's some lightning, now let's start counting. One Mississippi, two Mississippis, three Mississippis..."

Percy's voice was small, but Sally heard him muttering in his closet. She drifted back towards him and had him in her arms again by the time thunder rumbled. He squirmed against her wildly.

"No, don't be scared," Sally said. "That was really good. How many Mississippis did we count?"

"Fifteen," he said.

"Well done. And so we're going to take fifteen and divide it by five. How many groups of five can we make with fifteen Oreos?"

Sally held up both of her hands, fingers sprawled, and Percy added one of his own to count fingers with.

"Three," Percy said.

"Right," Sally said. "So that means that the storm is three miles away from us. That's even further than school is. We're getting the rain, but the thunder and the lightning isn't close."

Percy looked skeptical.

"Let's count again," Sally offered. They did.

"Three miles away," Percy repeated.

"That's right," Sally said.

Percy nodded. Sally kissed his hair.

"See, sweetheart? The storm isn't so big when you count the thunder," Sally said. "It's very small. So how about you come out of the closet, okay? We can stay awake and do something fun if you don't want to sleep. We could watch Spider-Man and eat Oreos, if you want."

"Can I have fifteen?" Percy asked.

"I don't think so, you goofy boy," Sally laughed, getting to her feet so she could pull him up too. She walked out of the room with Percy standing on her feet, taking big steps like a dinosaur. "But you can have three, how about that?"

* * *

It was Paul who opened the door, and he smiled when he saw Annabeth and gave her a warm hug that she hadn't realized she'd been looking forwards to.

"How did that physics test go?" he asked.

She liked that Paul never asked her how she was doing, because that was a hard question to answer and the real reply wasn't _I'm fine, how are you today? Lovely weather we've been having,_ and she didn't want to lie to Paul.

"Really well," Annabeth said. "And I got my grade back for that Hamlet essay. Thank you so much for helping me. I did finish the play for real after, like I promised. I liked it."

"Good," Paul said. "Congratulations."

Annabeth hung her coat herself, the Jackson-Blofis apartment as familiar as her dorm room.

"I think it's good that you're here," Paul said more quietly. "She's been having a hard week. Stress baking so much, she brought up going vegan for a week."

"I'll try to get you out of that," Annabeth said.

Paul shrugged it off. "I think seeing you will help."

He called over his shoulder while Annabeth kicked off her boots: "Sally, it's Annabeth!"

"Hi sweetheart!" Sally called from inside. "Come in, it's freezing outside! Let's get some water boiling for tea."

Annabeth took a left into the kitchen just as Sally crossed over from the living room, bundled up in a cardigan and a yellow shawl. She smiled when she saw Annabeth, but the lines around her eyes didn't crease just right. Annabeth hugged her back, and Sally squeezed hard and kissed her hair. She tilted Annabeth's chin up.

"What's that on your cheek?" Sally asked, her eyes slimming. It was her trademark Mama Bear move.

"I got in a fight this week," Annabeth said. "Just a _dracanae_ substitute teacher."

Sally smiled softly and squeezed Annabeth's hands.

"Still, I won't even _ask_ if you want cookies with your tea, dear," Sally said.

As she filled the kettle, Annabeth reached into the cupboards and found Sally's favourite mug (which had a Louisa May Alcott quote on it: _She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain_ ) and Annabeth's own mug, which Paul had gotten for her about a month after school had started. It read 'Go Away, I'm Reading'. When he'd given it to her, he said that he'd burst out laughing when he'd seen it in store and couldn't resist, since that mug summarized half of the exchanges between her and Percy that he heard.

Annabeth was getting way too much reading done now.

"Paul do you want tea too?" Annabeth asked.

"No thank you," he called back.

"He's grading papers," Sally said. "So it's been black coffee all day."

Annabeth nodded and watched Sally arrange her famous chocolate chip cookies on a plate, alongside sugar cookies, snickerdoodles, oatmeal raisin, peanut butter, rocky road cookies… Paul hadn't been kidding.

"Jason, Piper and Leo came by last Sunday," Sally said, catching her eye. "They each have a different favourite."

Annabeth nodded. "What's Jason's?" she asked out of curiosity.

"It took me a while to get it out of him," Sally said. "But he definitely drifts towards the snickerdoodles. I don't think he ever had any before. I suppose they're not as widely available commercially…"

Annabeth nodded. The boy that Hera had dropped in Percy's place was still an enigma to her, and it took a lot of energy out of Annabeth to not only decipher him, but to find the willpower it took to do so without being resentful. It wasn't his fault that he'd woken up on their side of the continent, and even less that his vows as praetor binded him to to secrecy regarding Camp Jupiter's affairs. With Gaia acting up, this was the absolute worst time to break an oath sworn on the earth itself. Annabeth was sure that Jason's friends home were just as unsatisfied by Percy's presence.

Still, she admired that Jason took the time to visit Sally. That was good of him. And it mustn't be easy, especially if Thalia had told him anything about Beryl Grace already.

They moved over to the living room. Quilts and afghans were thrown over the couch, and piles of books decorated the side tables. The walls were full of pictures- Paul's nieces, Percy as a chubby toddler making sand castles in Montauk, from his middle school graduation, Sally and Paul's wedding, one of their honeymoon in Stratford for the Theater festival, where they'd posed next to a statue of Shakespeare. There was even a picture of Percy and Annabeth at Camp, sitting on the dock in their bathing suits. Annabeth had no idea what they'd been doing or who had taken the picture (though her money was on Grover, who she also suspected of being Sally and Chiron's main informant and gossip from Camp), but she liked the way that they squinted in the sun and smiled and let their feet dip into the canoe lake and she liked the way Percy was looking at her.

She looked away and found a coaster on which to put her mug.

"So what happened with that dracanae?" Sally asked, settling down on her usual spot. A Stephen King novel was laying face down on that side of the coffee table, open at a certain page. "Are there more in the area?"

"I don't know," Annabeth said. "Malcolm, that's my brother, is developing some theories relating to monster anthropology. If his understandings are correct, based on the markings on her scales she was a loner, not part of a nest."

"Good," Sally said. "So you're safe? You're okay?"

Annabeth nodded. And then her lip was quivering.

"I'm safe," she said.

"But you're not okay," Sally finished. She didn't say it accusingly or sharply. Everything about Sally was as soft as the curl in her hair, or her mother voice, or her eyes.

"I'm okay," Annabeth said. She evened out her breath. Sally didn't need this.

When she looked back up Sally was looking at her with a smile tinged with sadness, like Chiron did when he looked at young demigods and said they were destined for greatness. It sounded tremendous, but came at a price. Percy had gotten that look more than anybody Annabeth had ever known.

She wiped at her eyes and realised that her palm came off smeared with tears. Fuck.

"Come here," Sally said. And so Annabeth left her mug of tea untouched and snuggled up with Sally, who held her like a mom would. She kissed Annabeth's head. "Talk to me when you're ready, sweetheart."

Annabeth liked that Sally didn't push the words out of her. They always came out anyways.

"It's just been a really long week," Annabeth said. "The kind of week where it would have been really nice to have those Tuesday nights together and our Friday night dates, you know?"

"I know," Sally said.

"And I just have all these feelings that I don't know what to do with," Annabeth said. She was hyper-conscious of how awful and horrible and plain that sounded, but she didn't know how else to say it. She had no action plan to deal with and dispose of the thoughts and the pangs and the longings.

"That's okay," Sally said encouragingly.

"It's scary," Annabeth said.

"How come?" Sally said, just as gently. She was so gentle, it got Annabeth riled up. Like how someone asking her a question could launch her on a tangent or a rant on anything from climate change deniers to the importance of funding PBS to why the Fibonacci spiral was extremely cool and how she'd managed to incorporate it into the new temple she'd built her mother. Not that Annabeth knew if the temple had finished construction yet. There was no way to go check, no way to learn, no way to guess if her plans had actually been executed or if the gods had forgotten them, like they'd seemed to forget their children. It was just one more godly annoyance for Annabeth to deal with.

"I'm scared by how much I miss him," Annabeth said. It came out quietly. "It's been three months and whenever I see something funny, I still think _I need to tell Percy on Tuesday, when I meet him after his swim practice and we go eat Chinese food._ Or when my friends open up a bag of candy to study, I still pick out the blue ones and put them aside for him. And I still try to decide if I need to do laundry by wondering if I have any clean jeans to wear on date night. I keep adding movies and shows to the list of things we need to watch on the back of my chemistry notebook even if we don't check it anymore. I… I can't really believe he's not going to come back, just one day out of the blue and apologize and let me call him Seaweed Brain and smack his arm. I can't make myself operate as if he's not around. It's like Hera took him, but he's still here. I can't... I bought him a birthday present already, and he hasn't even opened his Christmas present yet. It's still under my bunk at camp. That's ridiculous. I can't just be without him, even if he's away, and I don't know what's wrong with me."

"Sweetheart, that's okay," Sally said. She laughed under her breath, but not in a teasing way. It was warm and uplifting and Annabeth sat up and looked at Sally, brow furrowed.

Sally pushed a curl back behind Annabeth's right ear. "Did Percy tell you about Gabe?"

Annabeth was startled at how casually she mentioned it.

"Yes," she said mechanically. "A bit. Not the details, but…"

"He mentioned how he hit me?" Sally said. "Among some other things."

Annabeth nodded.

Sally nodded back and pushed some curls back, behind her left ear this time.

"When I met Paul, I was terrified," Sally said. "I had all this hurt that I was still processing, and that maybe I'll work on for the rest of my life. I don't know. And at the same time I had all this excitement and all these questions and all this energy. All I wanted to do was listen to his stories and tell him mine, go out for coffee, hold his hand, exchange novels and read the Post-Its that he always leaves in his books, fall asleep on the phone… I thought I was an idiot. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me- you know that saying. It was overwhelming, falling in love. I was a bit of a mess. But that's okay. That's what love is, when you've been hurt before. It feels like too much, too big, too soon, too good. But it's not. Love is always like that. It's all-consuming."

Annabeth didn't know what to reply. The word love rung in her ears until it developed its own heartbeat, somewhere in the back of Annabeth's head, and thumped away.

"And Percy is good to you," Sally said. "Do you remember that B- he got on his biology test? Before I could even congratulate him he said 'I have to tell Annabeth'. When he came back from his Father's place with that red coral, he asked me about a dozen times if it was nice enough to give to you, and if I thought you'd like it. He wore proper shoes on your one month anniversary. He goes to museums with you. Do you know his track record with museums? It's not good, but he goes in them willingly, for you and to be with you. He loves you so much, even if he hasn't told you yet -and that's between you two, but… Well, he's not very good at keeping secrets, our Percy."

Annabeth smiled at that. "We ran into my mother when he came with me to drop off blueprints for Olympus. Maybe a month after we started dating. You should have seen his face. He jumped back at least four feet and stayed there until she was gone."

Sally laughed.

"You know how awful Paul's family is?" Sally asked.

"I heard," Annabeth said.

"Well, last time Paul couldn't get off the hook for a Sunday brunch, he was bragging about you," Sally said. "He really does think you make him better. Paul's mother was still unimpressed, but that's a her problem, not a you problem."

Annabeth laughed. Sally squeezed her hands.

"You don't have to be scared of this," Sally said. "This is normal."

"It feels so big," Annabeth said.

"Maybe it is," Sally said. "Or maybe it's simple. Maybe you're best friends and have been for a while, now."

"We're supposed to be young," Annabeth said.

"It's not about age," Sally said. "You're allowed to be in love, Annabeth. It's okay for it to feel destabilizing and big and difficult."

"I wish it weren't," Annabeth said.

"That's a whole other story," Sally said. "And welcome to the club."

"Does that club have tea and cookies too?" Annabeth asked.

Sally smiled, and this time the lines around her eyes creased the right way. That made Annabeth smile too. It was a simple thing, really, how beautiful and comforting Sally's smile was. Even in the mess that the gods had made, with Percy missing and another storm brewing on their horizon. And Annabeth reconsidered everything, then. If the smile of a mother seperated from her child could be simple, what was difficult? Maybe it was simple, her and Percy together. Maybe he was her first best friend and always would be, and maybe she loved him because there was no other choice. Maybe it was as simple as her heartbeat. No matter how miraculous and complex the human body was, at the end of the day, it wasn't difficult to close her eyes, put her fingers to her neck, and count her heartbeats. The regular muscular contractions, the steady thumps of blood rushing through her veins and keeping her alive... It was easy.

One Mississippi.

Two Mississippi.

Three Mississippi...


End file.
